never had lupus till after the smoke fire

An appliance caught fire a few months ago, I ended up breathing in alot of smoke from this appliance when I oppened the door. Since then I have been getting sick every few weeks. The dr did a blood test and it is apparently lupus. Has anybody gotton lupus after breathing in toxic smoke/heavy metels/toxins?

Hi. Sorry about your fire; I hope you had no further harm beyond not feeling well since, which is bad enough... Did your dr. state which blood test was positive? The problem is, there isn't a single test for systemic lupus. Instead it's a diagnosis made by fulfilling 4 or more of 11 established criteria. Look for these in the "sticky post" (permanent info post) at the top of the thread list.

ANA is one well-known test, but it's by no means definitive for lupus, because it's positive in a number of conditions (various in rheumatology, some in endocrinology, certain cancers, etc.). Plus, it may also elevate just due to a passing virus. Also, it generates many false positive results (or so we read & our drs. tell us). Anyway---after you read that sticky post, I hope you'll post more! Best wishes, sincerely, Vee
P.S. I had episodic problems from early childhood on, no known exposure to smoke, toxins, etc. My relatives have various autoimmunes, incl. ulcerative colitis, Type I diabetes, and lupus. Some relatives only. Others are fine.

They took 8 tubes of blood and redid the test today and added more. They seem to diagnase lupus by doing a lot of tests to see "what it is not" and more tests to see what it is. When I asked they said it is not rumatoid arthrites, not thyroid, not hormones, not lymes desiese, nothep., not b 12
not prvovirus, not polyarthraigia. Apparently I do have elevated ANA and renauds. I have a swelling around my eyes, back pain, joint pain, fatiguq, headache, neck ache, and what I thought were spider bites, well they weren't spider bites. This all seems confusing, my dr sent me to a rumatologist, who reran the tests and is now sending me to a imunologist. They took these tests before and are running the same ones again at a different lab. I guess we are all hoping its not lupus. I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired! I wish they had a more concrete test a yes or no for sure kind of test.

krzjaz, hi. I'm glad you have multiple types of specialists looking into this. (Well, by "glad", you know what I really mean.) I bet many of us saw multiple specialties, to rule out conditions with overlapping symptoms. I certainly did, and you're right: it's very frustrating that MANY conditions---not only lupus--don't have a single diagnostic test!

Dermatologists or dermatopathologists can do a deep-punch biopsy to try to nail down certain rashes/lesions. Has any dr. suggested seeing one, for your "bites" that look like spider bites but aren't? Where are they located? What do they look & feel like?

I ask because, at first, I thought my lesions were bites, too! For four years, I got only red, raised papules, looked like big juicy mosquito bites, on upper arms & back. Didn't itch, burn or hurt. New batch every 3 months. Fours years later, those same papules started expanding into red rings, that expanded even further until they faded, with scarring or depigmenting. Final diagnosis: a lesser-known lupus rash called SCLE, annular form.

Re: swelling around eyes, did they all ask if you took any meds in the recent months? Like an antibiotic?